Monday, 18 June 2012

Sixteen years ago this Friday
I had a fall. Or should I say I was pushed off of a balcony in Paris having just played a gig there the
previous night. Apparently I was lucky to survive; my head missed the kerbside
by three inches. The culprit was a drummer who no doubt claims to this day the
fall was a fall and not a push, how it was an accident. But we both know that
it wasn’t an accident and if I had made contact with the kerb, right now I
wouldn’t be sat here writing this and he’d still be getting away with murder.

When I awoke in a Paris
hospital, pumped with pellets of morphine – elbow fractured, wrists splintered,
body swollen – and unable to communicate with staff who refused to speak
English (which was fair enough) I decided when I got back home things would
change. And that’s exactly what happened.

I left the band. I started a new relationship with a wonderful
young woman who became Mrs England.
I began to write a regular column for the next three years in a football
fanzine. I began to write fiction. But even more remarkable than any of that, was
this. I began to read books.

One of the first books I read was a book I ‘borrowed’ from
the hospital in Paris.
The book had a great title. It was called We
Always Treat Women Too Well and was written by a French author Raymond
Queneau and published in English by John Calder. My previous interest in
reading was Roy of the Rovers and Viz so this was a major leap for me. The
Queneau book was excellent, a lively short novel with humour and swearing and set
during the Easter Uprising in 1916.

I purchased my first John Calder in a Sue Ryder. 75p for a
paperback edition of the Samuel Beckett trilogy (Molly, Malone Dies, The Unnamable). Mint condition. But I found at
the time that the book was a hard read; I admit back then I struggled and could
have easily taken the easy route and hooked back up with Billy the Fish. But I
didn’t. I continued to satisfy this new thirst to read.

I would eventually return to John Calder books and build a fine
collection of first editions but what was to truly change everything came from
another Scot. Kevin Williamson.

His excellent Rebel Inc
Classic series all started for me with Hunger
by Knut Hansum. Here was a novel so easy to read but so layered in detail.
It was funny, brutal, heartbreaking. An honest book. You know you are into
something when you quite literally don’t want to stop turning the page; you
phone into work sick the next day because there’s still fifty-one pages left.

Not only was the novel outstanding but I also learned about
the importance of getting the translation correct. This translation from
Norwegian into English by Sverre Lyngstad provided examples of how other
editions had been appallingly tackled. I could provide examples here but
recommend you track the book down for yourself instead. It’s out of print but
still out there. With Hunger I was
receiving an education. With just one
book I had learned more about the importance of good literature than I ever did
in school. And then came John Fante. Obviously influenced by Hamsun, Ask The Dust and The Road To Los Angeles blew me away in the same fashion Hunger did and the ride got better when the
next Rebel Inc book I read was Young Adam
by Alexander Trocchi. These four brilliantly written books alone should
make for compulsory reading in schools.

But the journey didn’t stop there. Onwards they kept coming
at me like interesting new mates popping round for a chat and with absolutely
no threat of being thrown from a balcony. And so I read Fup and Not Fade Away by
Jim Dodge, The Blind Owl by Sadegh
Hedayat, Revenge of the Lawn by
Richard Brautigan, The Man With The
Golden Arm by Nelson Algren and the excellent book about Trocchi by Allan
Campbell and Tim Niel, A Life In Pieces.

The majority of these Rebel Inc books were true lost
classics given a new life and it changed my whole perception of books as a
reader and also helped me develop as a writer (I accept the argument that there
is still little evidence of this in my fiction writing) and doubt without Kevin
Williamson and Rebel Inc that I would have ever read these great writers or
gone back to John Calder’s list for further inspiration. But I did. And at John
Calder I found the following waiting for me: Berg by Ann Quin, Last Exit
To Brooklyn by Hubert Selby Jr, The
Wild Boys by William Burroughs, Europe
After The Rain by Alan Burns, Jesus
Iscariot by Anthony Storey, Providings
by Elspeth Davie, Black Spring by
Henry Miller, more Queneau and one of my favourite books of all time, Cain’s Book by Trocchi.

I nearly met with John Calder in March. There was a series
of readings and discussions at his shop – Calder Bookshop Theatre – but sadly
he was unwell and unable to attend. It was a bitter blow. Kevin Williamson is
on Twitter @williamsonkev and I have enjoyed being able to let him know what an important
impact he made on me as well as Calder. Because I know for a fact that without the
likes of Hansum, Fante and Trocchi, without the efforts of Kevin Williamson and
Rebel Inc, there would be something missing in my life and to this day I
wouldn’t have had a clue where to look to find it.